(Eris POV)
Our first thoughts after that was to chase after Master but Cai Hong mentioned that if Master's body here were to be destroyed by the tentacled freaks, Master might lose His anchor to this Universe making this no longer the main Universe anymore.
Thus our plan to leave the other versions of me here to fight against those tentacled things while we go off to search for Master was scrapped.
Cai Hong then said that she would go off to find her other siblings to help and flew off into the sky. I'm not sure if it was just because she's in her older form but I felt a little unnerved that she was so calm about the situation.
After placing Master's empty vessel in His room and putting up defensive inscriptions on the room, we were all gathered in the courtyard again with the other versions of me that came from other Universes.
"I think we all know that we didn't save you all out of the goodness of our hearts," Lian Li announced while looking at the group seated in front of her.
One of them looked up at her, "We know… You don't want us touching your Master."
Lian Li shook her head, "Not only that. Do you know that two of those tentacled freaks are coming to this World right now?"
I thought the other versions of me would start panicking but they simply looked at Lian Li with puzzled expressions instead.
"Tentacled freaks? Like a giant octopus or a squid?" One of them asked.
Manami's eyebrows raised slightly in surprise, "Ara, ara? Don't any of you know about them? They call themselves the Great Ones."
All of them started murmuring amongst themselves but in the end, it turned out that none of them have heard of what a Great One even is.
I gasped, "No, they wouldn't know what it is because despite having multiple parallel Universes, there's still only one of that stalker bitch! Didn't Master say that those tentacled freaks are a manifestation of her or something? If she isn't native to those Universes, then they wouldn't exist in their Universe!"
Kiyomi sighed, "Great… We saved them hoping they would at least have experience or at least be able to help us with our problem, turns out we got a bunch of dead weights instead."
"Hey! Watch it! Even if dey' aren't us, they're still a version o' us!" Bait protested.
The white fox rolled her eyes at us but said nothing more.
The me who is wearing golden robes raised her hand meekly, "Forgive me… But could I ask what was done to us so that we didn't End?"
All of us turned to look at Brendan since he was the one who used it.
He shrugged, "I basically just gave all of you a new Origin here and tied your existence to this Universe."
I raised an eyebrow, "You can do that?"
"I told you, there is very little that you cannot do with Master's powers."
"And you know how to use it just like that?"
"Senior sister… I do want to remind you that I have been studying this particular thing for quite some time now. I'd like to think that I am quite intimately familiar with its capabilities."
Ah, I suppose that is true…
Diao Chan tilted her head at him, "In that case, couldn't you use this to get Master to come back?"
Brendan hesitated, "Technically… I could. But I don't think it's that easy… What we need now is someone who is knowledgeable about alternate Universes and also what is causing Master to jump from Universe to Universe like that. Even if I brought Master back here, He might not remain here."
We redirected our gazes back to the alternate versions of me, expecting someone to answer.
One of them actually stood up, "It's… Not really that complicated to be honest… Your Master had created the Origin of all the parallel Universes and thus there's multiple versions of Him inside those Universes. Since those versions also consist of a fragment of Himself… Master's consciousness is also fractured infinitely."
Diao Chan frowned, "But just a while ago, Master was acting ok with me… In fact, He was even recovering."
The other me nodded, "That must be when most of the parallel Universes were still being formed… Now that they are formed, this is the result."
I scowled, "Then what do we need to do to get Master back here and fix all this? Do we actually need to go get rid of that stalker bitch?"
The answer came from an unexpected source instead.
"I can answer that!"
All of us looked up to see Elaria hanging onto some kind of machine that was descending silently towards us. She landed in the courtyard and the machine dropped down beside her with a soft 'clang', blowing out air that sent a gust of wind that buffeted us before settling down.
Tsuki immediately narrowed her eyes at her, "What do you know? You weren't here for a good chunk of what has already transpired."
Master's little sister rolled her eyes, "Please. I have this whole place bugged with listening devices and cameras, do you think I don't have this place under surveillance all the time?"
"Oh? Then… Does it mean you have interesting photos and videos of Aniue?"
"Heh heh… You bet~ I'll sell it to you for a copy of those childhood pictures you have."
"Done."
The two girls shook hands in the midst of our confusion before Elaria stretched out her storage ring and materialised a weird looking box on the ground.
Light projected out from it to hit the wall, showing some kind of picture on it with a circle in the centre and lines spreading out from it to join to other smaller circles that stretched out all around it.
"This! Is our Universe!" She said cheerily, pointing towards the centre circle. "And these other circles are the rest of the Universes around us!"
We already know that there were theoretically an infinite amount of other Universes but seeing the millions of circles on that screen really drove home how small we really were.
Lian Li rested her hands on her hips, "Ok, we get there's a whole lot of other Universes, but what do we need to do?"
Elaria grinned, "Simple! Just like how that stalker bitch converted multiple variants of Onii-sama from these Universes to turn into the boring version of Onii-sama, we just need to jump to the other Universes and convert more of them into our version of Onii-sama! If we can convert more, then that will override her control!"
I made a face at her, "Jump to… Other Universes?"
She nodded, "It's foolproof! So what do you say? Are all of you prepared to go Universe hopping?!"
Ummm… She was being serious?
